25 Travel Stories That Will Make You Smile

Right before the pandemic shut down cities across the U.S., Barbara Palumbo was in NYC to celebrate her daughter's 10th birthday. They were staying at The New York EDITION and had plans to attend a showing of Hamiltonon Beatrice's birthday. However, that day Barbara received bad news: the show would be canceled that very night amid the shutdown.

Mauro Cristian Aguilar, The New York EDITION's director of rooms operations, ran into Barbara having a glass of wine at the bar. She told Aguilar how disappointed her daughter was, and he saw an opportunity to step in and help turn Beatrice's birthday around. Aguilar texted Steven Florkiewicz, director of guest relations, who used his artistic capabilities to create something very special for Beatrice: "a personalized Hamilton playbill with Beatrice's name on it instead of Hamilton's and replace the silhouette with that of an adolescent girl in a thematic dress." The hotel added a patriotic-themed cake and sent it along with the framed playbill to the room.

Beatrice loved the gift so much, her mother told Forbes: "My daughter crawled into bed holding the picture. She curled up and she had it under the covers with her like a stuffed animal."